The following is a long and boring story - you can skip and miss not much.
I went to Sam's to have the tires swapped as I have a lifetime package for both sets of tires. The Back Story: I bought a set of Blizzaks from Tire Rack on my way home from Lordstown in 2017. I had also picked up my 18" rims on the way through Ohio. I knew I wanted Continentals but thought I could get a better deal at Sam's. I had Tire Rack mount my snows on the LT rims and drove home. Went to Sam's the next day and compared the offer from Tire Rack to theirs. They said they would match it and I got the better tire price to boot. I also paid an extra $41 for the balance and rotate package for the snows as they were brand new. This set me up for lifetime seasonal tire rotations and balancing as they were on separate rims and did not entail little if any extra work on their part. I had tire bags with location indicators on them so they would know where to rotate the tires to next season. I also set this deal up with my daughters Cobalt.
Well, every other time I would go, someone new would be there and try and charge me for the seasonal rotation. I was able to get them not to most of the time. This brings me to the other day. I had made the appointment last week after trying for about 4 weeks on and off calling to schedule. I had to physically go there to do it as they are short staffed and basically do not answer the phone. If you get through to the service desk, sometimes you can leave a message and they might call you back. For me, I have a home phone and they leave a message that they called and to call them back. Basically, amounts to no appointment, so I go in. I was lucky to get a first thing in the morning appointment on my off day over a week later. I loaded up my summer tires and got there early.
I had a good rapport with a few of the other employees, but today there are two guys I have not seen before except when I made my appointment. First thing they want to charge me extra for the seasonal change. I go through the same spiel I usually do and one of them finally says “we’ll take care of it” while the other is looking for ways to still charge me. I leave my keys and go into the store. 15 minutes later I get called back to the desk.
They said we have some bad news. You need new tires. They had brought out one of the summer tires (Continentals). Sure enough, it was being worn on the inside of the tire. They immediately started in on me to buy some Goodyear's that were on sale. I said I wanted the Continentals. I would buy another of them set from them. He said they were not in stock. He then went on to tell me I also needed new snow tires and that they were worse than the Continentals. I agreed and had expected that. I asked for a quote. He immediately said that they were not available in my size. I said I was not going to decide standing there in front of his desk as to purchasing other brands of tires. He then said that they did not know what to do. Then they agreed to put the snow tires back on. I said put three of the summer tires on and one snow tire and order me one of the Continentals. He said he could not do that as the rim sizes were different. I said the overall diameter was very close. They refused. I then called BS on them. I thought to myself that this was just a high-pressure tactic to buy tires right then and there. I then went and sat down to wait for my car.
After they put the snows back on, they brought out my keys. I told him that they had just lost sales for eight tires and that I would not be coming back. After getting home, I called Firestone to get a quote on both sets of tires. They are competitive on the snows , but over $300 above on the other. They offered me the same deal for the rotations and balancing and said I could have the summer tires delivered to them If I bought them elsewhere. I also already have lifetime warranty for the front-end alignment with them, so this will be easier for me in the long run.
Later, I dragged out the jack, stands, chock block and tools and proceeded to swap the rear tires. I go to remove it and thought holy cow, what gorilla put these on. Just to see, I retrieved my torque wrench and set it to 100 ft-lb's and tried to remove the lug. Click, moved to 110, click, 120, click, 130, 140, 150 and then beyond the vernier markings – click. WTF. Well over 150 ft-lbs. on every lug. I got my 3-foot breaker bar out and struggled to get them off. I changed the rears. I then went on to change the brakes on the passenger side. Once done, I pulled the cover off the same tire they had showed me earlier. As I did so, a small dull silver thing fell to the ground. It did not occur to me what it was at first. I went on to roll the tire over to get it ready to mount. I happened to look at the inside of the rim and saw the paper backing next to three other stick on weights and realized what had fell out of the cover. I reach down and saw that a second weight was barely hanging on.
So, in conclusion, it seems they did not like it when I called BS on them for not swapping out my tires. You would think they would at least put on the better set. I still do not see why they would not put on three summers and one snow. When I replaced one of my summers last fall, they had no issue with me pulling in with that very combination on. Then to add insult to injury, they over tightened my lugs by 50%. Add this to the possible tampering with the weights on the tires and what do you get?
It just occurred to me that they never said anything to me when they did the summer to winter swap about my summer tires needing replacement.
